Shoes of the Dead

Crushed by successive crop failures and the burden of debt, Sudhakar Bhadra kills himself. The powerful district committee of Mityala routinely dismisses the suicide and refuses compensation to his widow. Gangiri, his brother, makes it hisife’ s mission to bring justice to the dead by influencing the committee to validate similar farmer suicides. This creates a crisis for a powerful Delhi politician's son and member of Parliament from Mityala, Keyur Kashinath, as every confirmed suicide is a blot on his party's image and questions his competence. The brilliant farmer battles his inheritance of despair, the arrogant politician fights to keep his inheritance of power. Their two worlds collide in a conflict that pushes theimits of morality from where there is no turning back. At stake is the truth about ‘ inherited’ democratic power. And at the end, there can only be one winner. Passionate and startlingly insightful, Shoes of the Dead is a chilling parable of modern-day India.

Kota Neelima is a political editor with The Sunday Guardian and a Research Fellow for South Asia Studies at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC. Her previously published work includes the novels Riverstones, Death of a Moneylender and The Honest Season. Neelima lives in New Delhi and Washington, DC.